About Me

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Stop Reacting and Start Responding Review

I've never wanted to be one of those parents who just yells at their children in an attempt to stop them from doing something and to change their behavior. Well now that he's almost 15 months old and getting into trouble that's exactly what I find myself doing. I guess for me it's a hard habit to change since that's how I was brought up and it's easy to just yell "no" or "stop it"!

I was given the opportunity to review Sharon Silver’s new book Stop Reacting and Start Responding™ which offers a new way of disciplining our children without the senseless yelling and actually create change. The book is divided into different chapters depending on the scenario. She covers many different situations one could encounter with their children and explains how to handle the situation as well as examples of what to say. I love how she also explains things from the child's point of view as it's easy to forget that they're children, not adults and therefore understand things differently from an adult. Each section also has a quick recap at the end which provides an easy reference when looking back.

My son is only 14 months old so I do find that most of the book doesn't apply to him yet but I can already see little things in my behaviour that I can start changing in order to better be able to handle his behaviour when he gets older. I'm trying to stop yelling but it's not easy. I try to talk to him as she suggests in the book knowing he won't understand now but it'll help me get used to disciplining him in such a way. I really think I'll be coming back to this book again and again for many years to come as it's a lot of information to take in and I'm sure I'll need many reminders. Stop Reacting and Start Responding™ is a book that definitely belongs in all parents' reference libraries!